Cloud computing's latest battlefield: India

Earlier this year Microsoft and HP got into a strategic partnership to provide businesses with end-to-end cloud solutions. Times of India says India’s Small and Medium Business segment will be able to leverage this partnership.

Earlier this year Microsoft and HP got into a strategic partnership to provide businesses with end-to-end cloud solutions. Times of India says India’s Small and Medium Business segment will be able to leverage this partnership. HP with their enterprise hardware expertise and Microsoft’s software solutions combined make quite a compelling offer.

As a key player in the IT field, India is poised to be a Billion Dollar market in the next 5 years according to a study by an IT infrastructure firm. The study claims that this growth will be driven by the rapid increase in data such as text and media moving online. Some numbers shared in the study are quite interesting, it is expected that information stored online will reach a staggering 2.3 million petabytes (from 40,000 petabytes.)

Rapid development in cloud computing might enable Indian firms to find some solution to tackle the growing debate on outsourcing. Infosys sees an opportunity here. Raghavan Subramanian, in charge of the Infosys Center of Excellence for cloud computing says using the new architecture there can be considerable cost saving provided the implementations are done right. Infosys has dedicated around 250 individuals from their BPO team and about 175 engineers to come up with solutions for better customer relations management and other organizational departments where cloud computing can help improve efficiency.

Mr. Subramanian explains, “We have seen people deploy cloud solutions, but not be able to fully achieve the intended cost benefits due to poor utilization of the software. With trained manpower, we deliver much better cost savings than otherwise.”

India’s top IT firms, Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Tech Mahindra have cloud projects to their names. The competition is fierce as the market is nascent and big international names like Microsoft, IBM have dedicated resources as well. Support from the government to get basic infrastructure (cheaper and faster Internet) in place will go a long way in ensuring India’s IT prominence.